Aida D. Donald's biography of Theodore Roosevelt and his path to modernity

¶ … Lion in the White House: A Life of Theodore Roosevelt, by Aida D. Donald

Aida D. Donald's biography of the 26th American president of the United States is one of several projects to come out recently indicating a resurgence in the popularity and relevance of the man who Donald characterizes as the first modern president. Characteristics of modernity that Donald focuses upon include Roosevelt's positioning of the United States as a world super power rather than the fledgling nation started by intellectuals fracturing off from European centrality and control.

The biography looks to the frailties of Roosevelt's early life in order to explicate the impetus behind his self-created image of a robust man who lived and lead with gusto in his later life. "Roosevelt aimed to restore the old virtues and programs of the earliest Republicans. He staked out his philosophy of government, and his political tactics were aggressive and energetic" (Donald 38). While he is best remembered in popular culture for his almost mythic presidency, Roosevelt was a man who had many stages of accomplishment throughout his lifetime, including his illustrious military career and the conservationism and natural preservation efforts that defined his post-White House life.

Pre-Presidency

After he graduated from Harvard and lost his first wife, Alice, to kidney disease, an event he refused to discuss for the rest of his life, Roosevelt built a ranch named Elk Horn in the Bad Lands of North Dakota. Many of the stories that he would tell throughout his political career emphasized the toughness that he cultivated through this time period, and Donald points out that Roosevelt was eventually well-respected by lifelong ranchers in the territory because he proved himself unwilling to back away from conflict. It was throughout this period that his physical form became tanned and muscled, closer to the image most Americans have of him in his later life. He ended up serving as a deputy sheriff for the area in which he lived. It was also during his time in the Badlands that he developed a lifelong love and commitment to America's natural landscape.

Two years after he moved out west he realized that his ranch was no longer financially viable and that it was time for him to turn his attention back to more successful ventures. He sold Elk Horn in the fall of 1886 and moved back to New York City to mount an unsuccessful mayoral bid. Following this defeat, he turned his attention to writing, and through the rest of the 1880s, he finished the well-received, three volume tome The Winning of the West while serving on the Civil Service Commission until 1895, an appointment he received due to his hearty campaigning efforts for Benjamin Harrison in the Midwest.

After this appointment, he was placed on the New York City Police Board and then was named police commissioner for the city for the years 1895 to 1897. Throughout this period, he established himself as a dedicated and notable public servant with an eye upon reform. He was known to patrol the streets of the city at night himself in order to reduce crime rates in the city. Donald writes of Roosevelt through this period of time as disciplined and with an eye on brighter future prospects, but with an eternal commitment to the city of New York that would last a lifetime.

War

The next section of the book focuses upon Roosevelt's military career, which was a product of both the fearlessness than Donald asserts was culled from his earlier experiences ranching as well-planned personal strategizing which moved him into positions of increasing power and responsibility. Throughout the portion of the biography pertaining to Roosevelt's military career, the author takes a rather removed stance, letting the sequence of events speak for themselves. This stands in stark contrast to the politicized analysis and recontextualization of Roosevelt's time in state and federal government. The book, which is much shorter than other biographies of Theodore Roosevelt, moves through his tenure as Assistant Secretary to the Navy, in which he played an instrumental role in preparing the United States Naval Forces for the Spanish-American. Donald emphasizes the hand-on approach he took to leadership; he resigned from the Navy Department when the war was officially declared in 1898 in order to create the diverse 'Rough Riders', the First U.S. Voluntary Calvary Regiment. His Rough Riders gained infamy for their efforts at the Battles of Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill. He was nominated for the Medal of Honor following these battles but it was not approved because it was said that he did not follow the rules of the army as a volunteer and thus interfered with the campaign; Donald does not provide any insight into how affected a battle-wearied Roosevelt.

The Political Contextualizing of Theodore Roosevelt

It is through the latter one hundred and fifty pages of the book that Donald's intentions in telling Roosevelt's story become most clear. The first half of the book underscores the life events, which forged the person who would ascend to national prominence later in life. It is a book that does not seek to conceal personal flaws nor does it aim to stir controversy. Donald's goal becomes more clear as she move into the development of Roosevelt's post-war political life, couching his choices in contemporary language meant to underscore the profound effect that Roosevelt's inability to create a forward-thinking, practical rather than ideological Republican party had in the creation of the intensely divided and oppositional political parties in power today.

Donald expounds upon Roosevelt's progressive attitudes around race, gender, and class and sets these among the more well-known traits of expansionism and self-reliance in her projection of what the Republican Party of now would look like if they claimed Teddy Roosevelt as one of the party's more influential founders. Of Roosevelt's social perspectives, Donald asserts, "Just as Governor Roosevelt wanted to help blacks, he also sought to protect women…Roosevelt was ahead of most of the country on women's rights. He had always favored suffrage for women…He believed men and women were equal, especially in marriage" (Donald 120).

A major effort of the biography seems to be to assert that Roosevelt's proper historical context rests between the political lights of Lincoln's brand of progressive Republicanism and his cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's expansion upon Democratic progressive ideals into the social programs of the New Deal:

"In nothing less than a revolution, Roosevelt would make reform and character, which had been the polestars of his hero, Abraham Lincoln, acceptable once more to the Republican Party. The new president never doubted that progressive Republicans were Lincoln's heirs, and he would use the martyr's heritage to exhort, challenge and change the nation. He would be midwife to a new birth of Republicanism" (p. 130)

Following the first years of his presidency, which he assumed after the assassination of President McKinley while he was serving as Vice President, Roosevelt ran a successful presidential election campaign of his own in 1904. His presidency was one, which saw many progressive regulations passed, including the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and The Pure Food and Drug Act. These efforts are what secure Donald's analysis that Roosevelt was the first thoroughly modern president, but creating federal regulations to secure a standardized quality of life. Yet he did not betray his Republican roots, confining government expansion to practical rather than ideological domains.